Transcription
Aderson Oliveira: I had a great conversation with Gonzalo Paternoster. He is the man of systems. He automates, he puts processes in place, and he outsources everything in his business. That's why he's able to run so many different companies and be able to partner with so many different businesses as well. Right now, he has over 100 outsourced contractors working for him. He even trains businesses on how to outsource, automate, and put processes in place as well. He is a source of so much knowledge in this space, you have to listen to this to get inspired and act.
Hello, hello, Aderson Oliveira here. This is the OuchSourcing Podcast, where I talk to business specialists, experts, business people, business owners, people that know a lot about the outsourcing space, what to do, what not to do, and we get their teachings, and we improve our outsourcing process a little bit every time that we talk to one of those specialists. Today, I have the pleasure to be talking to Gonzalo Paternoster, and he is the creator of Man of Systems. Gonzalo, thank you very much for being here. Welcome.
Gonzalo Paternoster: My pleasure, my pleasure. I'm glad to be here.
Aderson: Gonzalo, a key question before we talk about outsourcing. Maradona or Pelé?
Gonzalo: I would go with Pelé because he has a clean lifestyle, so I kind of respect that.
Aderson: Okay, at this point, Gonzalo, I have to say we lost all our North American audience, because I know soccer is not that popular around here. But, hey, that's fine, that's okay. I'm Brazilian, Gonzalo is Argentinian, so I had to ask that question. I mean, there's no way around that. And great that he picked the Brazilian one.
Gonzalo: That's the thing is one of the things I learned in outsourcing is the moment that you think you know everything, you don't know anything. So, I put my ego aside, and if there's a better player, I go with the better player. So, Pelé has more of a dynasty. Now, Messi, in a couple of years, we'll see if he's the greatest of all time.
Aderson: I guess so. To be seen. But, he's on a good path. He's in a great path. Okay, with that aside, let's focus a little bit on your business. Tell us a little bit about what is Man of Systems.
Gonzalo: What we do on Man of Systems is I started, I came in this so-called business world in internet marketing, all those type of things with outsourcing. But, one of the things I saw that the problem that people had when I started outsourcing is, "Oh, I'm going to outsource, I'm going to hire some people," and then they went from removing problems with outsourcers, then their next bottleneck became, "How do I manage those people? What do I get them to do?" and I realized when you hire more people, you actually create more problems unless you have systems in place.
I evolved into the whole process of it's not that people don't want to hire people, but it's like, "How do I manage them? How do I make sure I'm getting the most out of them without actually getting more headaches?" So, I realized that systems, that was the big thing. There's two great books. One of them is called "The E-Myth", and the other is called "Work the System". Now, if you read those books, they'll give you some information about systems, but one of the biggest problems is that they tell you it will take six months to two years before you systemize your company.
I gave myself the challenge of, "If I need to systemize a company in 30 days, how would I do that?" So, I created a process on how to totally outsource the systems creation for your company to someone else. I created the training, the hiring process and how to actually outsource your business and how to identify the keys to outsource so that the business owner didn't have to do it himself. I created a group. I think I had 30 or 40 people that were my initial test subjects, and it went crazy. I did that because I realized my goal is a lot of people sell things. Like, if people were on my list, they don't get promotions from me. When I promote something, they come out when I do, but I'm not necessarily a promoter.
The reason is when people come to me to help them with their business, I don't want to create distractions. So, unless I test something or use it myself, I will never promote it, even if it could make me a lot of money. Because, when someone comes to me, they already have a business, an idea. My goal is to help them kind of plan for that. So, what I do is I give people systems and processes that they can implement that have been proven so that they don't have to go out and waste time following formulas that don't work.
That's really my mission is I kind of see the people, my customers or my visitors, I see them like they're a part of me. So, if I was them, I don't want people to distract me or mislead me. So, I kind of treat them like if they were my best friend, how would I talk to them? So, that's how I kind of run my business.
Aderson: I'm also a big fan of Sam Carpenter, which is the author of Work the System. I mean, I'm loving the reading there. I'm actually very close towards the end of the book, so loving, loving the lessons, and Dean Soto, he mentioned that you put up his system. I guess, restructured the system to speed up, to not take two years, but take a month. That's great. Let's talk more about that. But, before we get there, let's step back a little bit here, Gonzalo. How did you learn how to outsource?
Gonzalo: When I immigrated to this country, I was a young kid, but in the third grade, my teacher gave me a thing called a science project to do, and there was a question there that you had to answer, which is, "What is your hypothesis?" I didn't know what that was. I went to my immigrant parents. They had no clue because they could barely speak English. So, I convinced my teacher to let me be the last student to give my presentation for the science project. What I did is I would listen to every single student, because my survival mechanism to not look stupid, I would see and reverse-engineer what they did. So, from early on, I learned how to reverse-engineer everything.
With outsourcing, I would reverse-engineer people who were successful at it, companies who I worked for, and learned how it is. One of the early lessons I learned about outsourcing is you have to give people a structure to do work for you. The other thing is I learned - and of course, you learn from a lot of lessons - is you have to find people who have the competence to do what you want them to do to begin with. So, it's not necessarily about who's the cheapest, but who has the natural skill set or the competence to do the task.
The thing that helped me with outsourcing is I don't hire one person that does everything in my company. I do the McDonald's thing. I hire one person for one job on a part-time, as needed basis, and that's all they do. A lot of people say, "I want a VA that can do copywriting, web design, all these things." If that person could do everything, they would cost you $1,000 an hour. I'd rather hire someone who does one thing that's $5 or $3, I hire this person that, maybe, can do copywriting at $20, but I only need them an hour a week. So, I hire like McDonald's instead of trying to find the superhero that knows how to do everything.
Aderson: Perfect, love that, but how come not more people or more businesses do outsourcing? I'll be honest with you. The reason why I call it OuchSourcing is because, usually, when people hear about outsourcing, there's a misconception there, there's a bit of a negative bias towards outsource, you know. What do you attribute that to?
Gonzalo: Well, I think outsourcing, most people identify that big companies do it, that's something for really big companies, and realistically, there's a famous quote that I love using that John D. Rockefeller said. He was interviewed and asked, "What was the number one business lesson you learned in your whole life?" Now, John D. Rockefeller was the richest man who ever lived on Earth, at least in modern times, and he said, "I'd rather earn 1% from 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own efforts."
That's what he used to create his wealth. The majority of people, I think their ego, they love to control things, and they'll say things like, "Someone can't do it better than I can," or, "It's going to take someone too long to do it." I've noticed in my own life, the richest people who I ever met are the dumbest people. The reason, you'll see smart people who are broke, and you'll see dumb people who are filthy rich. The reason they're rich is because they don't have the capacity to do the task, so their first instinct to get someone else to do it. When you're smart, you're like, "I can do this," and then you're like, "I can do this, I can do this." So, I had to train myself to become really dumb.
Aderson: You know, I love that answer, and what you mentioned there, I went through your quick outsourcing test to see if you are ready or not to outsource, and some of the things that you have listed there are the beliefs that someone may have that are stopping you from outsourcing. Now, in your particular case right now, as we speak this week, what is it that you outsource. What is it that you have some other people doing for you, for your company?
Gonzalo: Yeah, sure. I literally just created a new company this past week. The name of the business is called -- it's an awkward so I can share it. It's called Copysluts. "We put out... great copy." What I did is I found is one of the big problems that people have is writing an email of copy, right? The website will be up next week, whatever, but one of the big things is, "I need to write emails, I need to write emails," and that's things that have to be pumped out all the time. So, I said to myself, because I'm an owner of an affiliate management company that recently acquired in Austin. I'm now an owner of the thing called the Internet Marketing Party, which does all the pre-party to all the major events.
Now, the reason why I acquired these companies is because the owners of these businesses didn't have their companies systemized. One of the big issues they had was copywriters for emails. A typical copywriter will charge between 150 to 250 dollars per top person, right? So, what I did is I created a process for hiring, had to test them, and do copy for us. So, between 35 to 50 dollars an email, I have copywriters now write an email for all these companies for major launches.
That's something that, in our business, it's like, "Oh, we have to find a copywriter, we have to do this." So, instead of me hiring a copywriter, I hire content writers who we train to write copy. So, a content writer that knows how to write persuasion is 10 times cheaper than a copywriter, even though they're doing the same task.
That's one thing I did. So, right now, we wrote all the copy. A big launch is coming out this month, and it's going to be probably a 1 to 3-million-dollar launch, you see the affiliate management company would have to write out the emails, hire top people, and in a matter of three days, all their emails were written and they got them back, and they were like, "Oh my gosh, this is better than what copywriters do."
What I did in that process is the average full-time blogger, mommy blogger makes $9,000 a year. These mommy bloggers will create a blog post, get 50 to 250 comments, they know how to create engagement, but their business model's wrong. So, I hire these people, I test them, I train them, and they write copy for us. The thing is every problem I solve, I create a business out of it. Because, this business will probably make about 100,000 to about a quarter million dollars a year. But, the more important part, even if it doesn't make that much money, I'm never going to have to worry about copy for any business I'm involved in, for at least the email part. That's an example of something I recently outsourced.
Aderson: I really like that. Let me see if I got some of your core messages there, Gonzalo. You are a firm believer in processes, and you are a firm believer in outsourcing, and those, the way they go hand-in-hand, my question to you is more general now. I mean, there are so many things that, in life, I believe in, you believe in. Again, you believe in outsourcing, I believe in outsourcing, you believe in processes, I believe in processes. But, here's a challenge of people if you want to spread that message. How do you open people's eyes to that reality that you see, but it's hard for them to see that themselves until they have what Sam Carpenter mentions a lot is that a-ha moment, that, "Oh man, this really makes sense." How do you help to facilitate where they are to where they have that a-ha moment?
Gonzalo: What I do is I have them start with one thing. What I would have them do is identify the one area, so for example, this affiliate management company that I took over, I'm owner, I saw their business and I say, "What's the repetitive task that they do that's a pain for them?" and I start off with one thing. Because, I have a belief - like the whole thing with belief patterns - I have a belief that it takes one. So, every business I begin, if I can have that one success, tiny success, they are converting.
For example, if a person, let's say, owns an e-commerce business, and they write the emails. Because, most people, when they're a business owner, they think now they're the boss, and because they're the boss, they don't do tasks that they don't want to do. Usually, those are the tasks that makes them the most money, right?
For example, "I don't want to do this task, it's too much work," like for example, with Dean Soto, he refers me a lot of clients because his clients have e-commerce businesses, right? Every time they put a new product like an outsourced product, they'll make between 250 to 1,000 dollars extra per month. But, I had a call with one of the persons, I'm like, "Well, if you know $250 to $1,000 a month for every product you put on there, why don't you put more product?" "Oh Gonzalo, it takes a lot of time, it does a lot of these things."
I'm like, "So, if you hired one person and they take a whole month, instead of what you say takes eight hours, you put up a new product that makes you an extra $1,000, and that product makes you $500 extra a month, you would have that employee paid for the whole year for it. What if you added 30 products? What would that do for your business?" "Oh Gonzalo, I would never have to work again."
What happens is someone in your business needs to act like the employee. So, if it's not you, you better get someone to do that. So, start with one item.
Aderson: I see. You start with one thing and grow from there.
Gonzalo: I usually start off with the thing that you hate to do, that if you did, would make you more money.
Aderson: That makes sense, but on that note now, again, extrapolating and going beyond the initial thing, and this can be a big stat for someone that, "Hey, if you're just getting started, get the thing that you hate most and put it out there." I would assume that processes, you would also have to establish certain processes to put in place, otherwise -- again, I think that there is a belief that outsourcing is about giving that to somebody else and forgetting about that. It's not just that. You have, 2, if you don't have processes in place to manage that task, to manage that resource, you are also in trouble. You cannot expect a miracle just because now you hand this off to somebody else and you walk away. It's not like that, correct?
Gonzalo: Correct, and what happens is a lot of people try to get rid of their problems. So, when I hand something off, there's two things. There is you either have a process in place, like a simple example would be like a checklist. Let's say, for this podcast, you were like, "Okay, we recorded the podcast, we have to edit the sound, we do this, we do this, we do this." Sometimes, you have to have a process in place. There's times that you don't have a process in place and you're like, "Well, how do I do this?"
For example, I run my emails in a thing called ActiveCampaign, which is like an email responder. Well, I could have spent 20 hours learning how to do that, or you could hire an expert to set up my campaign for me. Well, one thing I do, I hire an expert and say, "Listen, every time you submit a campaign, let's say I wanted to charge you $500," I say, "Hey, instead of paying you $500 to set up the campaign for me, I will pay you an extra $100, but I want you to video record yourself doing the task, and when you record yourself, send it my way."
Now, you can actually give that recording, and let's say you're learning, reading about systems, or going through my course, or whatever, you give that to your VA, and they create a document of how to do that. Now, for someone at $5 an hour, they can actually create a new campaign for you. It might cost you $25 instead of costing $500. So, you can actually outsource the creation of your system, or you can actually use the systems that you have. But, if you start off with one, it becomes super simple.
For example, there's a gentleman who is the business partner of Jack Canfield. He's wrote a book called Chicken Soup for the Soul and all those type of things. That business partner went through my course, and he used my course to say, "How do I systemize things, whatever?" One of the big things, the mistakes that people do is you got to invest in some kind of processes so you don't have to learn yourself. It took me about three to four months from someone who's experienced to build a systems process that someone in a weekend can go through.
Someone can say, "Hey, I can learn all the books about systems, I can do this," or you can outsource it. That's why, for me, when I wanted to learn about email marketing, I paid a guy $500 that works for 1-800 Contacts to teach me their best practices. I didn't want to spend the next five years.
What happens is when people go into business, they're like, "I need to become a great email marketer, I need to own a list, I need to be a product owner." By the time you're done, it's 20 years. That's why most people don't make money because they're trying to learn everything themselves.
Aderson: You know, that was one of the key things that Dean Soto, he mentioned to me, when he said that you came up with a process on how to put processes in place via recording videos and giving that to somebody else to create a process, that was such a ninja move that I said, "You know what? There's no way that I cannot speak with that guy." That was a great point. I mean, a system, it's how I talk to a friend of mine, we call it the math of the math. It's a system to build systems, you know?
Gonzalo: For example, the two companies I own now, and the reason I own them without putting any equity in the business, because think about it, when people are asking for a quarter of a million dollars, or a million dollars to invest in their business, it's because they want to make their business more profitable and more efficient. I have this skill that very few people in the world have.
Now, someone goes through my course, they will be to the same level I am because I share everything I do. So, a guy who owns a multi-million dollar business gave me part of his business so I can do this for his company, because this is a pain point that every business has. $150 million dollar companies have the same pain point. Dean Soto, who used to work for a lot of key markets and is an expert about systems has the same problem.
If the company is small, or if the company is big, you know what people do is they end up hiring people and paying them too much because they want someone that can solve all their problems. But, if you build a systems-based business like McDonald's, they can have a guy from out of the street come in, run McDonald's over a day in one day.
I would start off with one area of business of the repetitive task and say, "Okay, I'm going to do it for this little area." So, let's say, for example, someone sends out the emails for your podcast, your website, I'm going to have one person to set up my emails for me like in a responder sequence, and then they're going to have a thing in place to check that the work was done right. Once you remove that, you're like, "Oh, this little part here, I'm going to outsource this little part, I'm going to outsource this little part," and before you know it, you have a completely outsourced business.
Aderson: The last point that you made there makes me think about the chicken and egg problem, and it's one of the misbeliefs or misconceptions of outsourcing, which is, "I cannot outsource right now because I don't have money to pay them, and the reason why I don't have money to pay them is because everything is on me, and I cannot outsource." and it becomes this chicken and egg problem. What do we articulate to someone that is on that mindset?
Gonzalo: The first thing I would do is I would tell them, "You only need to focus on learning how to outsource and systemize and don't ever invest in anything else until you make enough money." The reason why is you have people chase the shiny object, and the next tool, and the next thing. So, realistically, for example, the majority of people that work for me work on an as-needed basis on an hourly rate.
Most people, they hire a full-time person, like a 250 to 500 dollars a month, and they're like, "I need to figure out what to give them. What I do is I hire someone, say, "Hey, you're going to work for me, and that's how you're doing the systems course. You're going to work for me on an as-needed basis, and they're going to keep track of their hour-by-hour basis. So, one day, a person works for two hours. For example, I have a lady who I created a process of how to get design, click funnel experts. I have a funnel-building business that I created, and those experts cost me $1.85 an hour. I have a process that I use to hire them from Venezuela. Venezuela, right now, has a collapse in their economy, they're better than the Philippines, and yet, no one outsources there. So, we're going to be coming out with a job work in Venezuela, right? The great thing is they're in our time zone. We don't have to wait 12 hours.
I always do this. I create a test, I test their skill set. The system communicates with them, negotiates with them. I'm going to give you kind of an overview to see how it works. For example, when I wanted to hire graphic artists - I have graphic artists that make about 2 to 3 dollars an hour, that in the U.S., they would cost 50 bucks an hour. So, what I did is I went out and contacted three creative directors in the U.S. A creative director or creative artist is the guy who talks to the CEO, talks to the graphic artist, and is the middleman of converting that CEO language to graphic artist language. I paid each one of them 100 bucks for an hour of their time, and I said, "Can you tell me how do you do the thing you do?"
Now, remember going back to me being in third grade, I can extract what people do really well, right? So, each one of them told me what they did, and I'm like, "Oh, I can do that," so then I posted a job in Venezuela in the connections I have, and I said, "Listen, I want you to design this opt-in bribe for me and this landing page, and it's going to be a test." They apply to work for me in a form, then my system, with an hour or two, sends them an email and says, "Hey, thanks for applying. Your resume looks really good. Can you do this test task for me?" it comes back, it replies back to me, "Hey, great, the first test looks great. Here's the second test." They submit it, and it says, "Wow, I loved the test," and it starts negotiating their salaries with them automated. I don't see anything until it's done negotiating, because I don't want to waste my time evaluating their work until everybody's done.
I had, for example, the graphic artist, I had 2,000 applicants apply to work for me, and by the time I was done, 185 people did all the test tasks, told me how much they're willing to make on a part-time as-needed basis. So, now when I need it, I say, "Hey, can you design this for me," they design it, and it's done. So, now I can see, "Wow, this guy's $3 an hour, this guy's $5 an hour, this guy's $2. This guy, to do this test task, it took an hour and a half. That means it would cost me $3.50 for this beautiful opt-in bribe."
That's how I kind of do it with everything, so I always hire people on an as-needed basis so that I don't have to feel like I always have to give them work. So, if you can't afford to pay 5 bucks for graphic artists, you shouldn't be in business. You should get your job and not work.
Aderson: I see. Great point. To do what you were talking about, you must have some tools in place. I'm just wondering, you don't have to go in-depth there, but just brush through the different tools and systems that you have in place to help with processes, with communication.
Gonzalo: Sure. Number 1, give me some tools, some tools, I use Slack, that's the tool I use, I use a thing called Zapier for automation back and forth. For my course, I have a thing called Joy Proof that is in a video. Most of the tracking software that people use for workers, like they do a screenshot, or it tells you that the guy had his computer open for five hours, or Photoshop open for like 20 hours, that doesn't really help me. They could be working for somebody else. So, I went to my programmer and said, "I want a program that you hit 'Start working', it video records their whole desktop, their whole workday, they hit 'Stop working', and that video gets uploaded to Google Drive or Dropbox for me."
But, the cool thing is that video, I do something called "time lapse technology", so I can watch eight hours of work in about three minutes. Or, I can slow it down real-time. When people are watching you, they don't cheat you. It's human nature. Now, if you're not watching them, and they go to Facebook, and they go to YouTube, before you know it, it's like three hours passed by.
The other reason I tell everyone to hire part-time as-needed basis is that human beings, roughly, have about two to three hours of productive work in there. After that, they're shot. So, I usually recommend people to hire stay-at-home moms who only want to work two, three hours a day.
Aderson: Let me ask you a question, Gonzalo, about the fact that you do recording of your remote workers. How many times have you gone back and checked their work while they were doing it? How many times, roughly, in the last two weeks, let's say?
Gonzalo: I have my VAs do that for me. I have a person that checks it for me, and it takes them an hour a day. I have about 100 outsourcers right now that work for me either for me or companies that I belong to, or independent freelance work, and what I discovered is the people who worry about having that tool are the ones who are going to cheat you. The ones who are like, "This is great. I can prove that I'm working for you," are honest, and I've only had to fire maybe one or two people out of the years I've been using Joy Proof, which is the software, because of that.
Aderson: Okay, so you've said that even checking what your remote workers are doing, and you have VAs to do that for you, what is it that you don't outsource?
Gonzalo: What I don't outsource is strategy, and that's not really true, because I started outsourcing that lately. Here's the thing is the problem with the business owner is the business owner should not be doing any of the work with the business, period. I know that sounds kind of intuitive, right? But, I realize, for example, I'm a very good strategist, and even if you're a horrible strategist, you should then be talking to people about strategy, right?
For example, I've had people talk to me and pay me $1,000 to $2,000 an hour to talk to me. Some people say, "Gonzalo, I'm really dumb, but I'm a really good business person. Can I pay you 2,000 bucks, and I can talk to you, maybe, for one or two hours at separate times so I can extract from you what I should do as a strategy?" They're literally outsourcing their strategy. It's genius.
For example, with me, the older you get, the wiser you get, hopefully, but I have in my time. So, I realize in this space, in internet marketing, or digital marketing, the young guys or the young bucks are the ones who are like driven, they grind, they do all these things. For example, those young guys want to impress me, so I will go ask them some question and 20 of them will fall over backwards trying to answer that question for me, and I can go out and hang out with my wife, and I don't have to keep up with the latest trends. That's why, if you notice, a lot of the senior, wealthy executives, or owners of companies, they surround themselves with the energetic young bucks, and that's what I do.
Aderson: Extract what they know that is fresh, and again, apply that, systematize that.
Gonzalo: One of the things I do with people before they outsource or do things, one of the biggest problems that they have is they have flawed business models. A lot of people, they start businesses that are based upon a trend and not based upon a company being around for the next five years. For example, my systems course or outsourcing course, the outsourcing course has been selling for four years. It doesn't change. I mean, we update it, but it doesn't change. Systems are going to be selling for the next 20 years. That course will probably end up making you 20, 30 million dollars over that time frame, right? Because, it's never going to change.
I don't chase the little objects that are like, "Here's the latest Facebook thing in the world," because that trend is going to change tomorrow. There's a good friend of mine who used to be the right-hand person for Wayne Huizenga. Wayne Huizenga was the founder of Blockbuster and Waste Management, and we asked him, "What do you know about Wayne? You worked with him as his right-hand person," and he said, "Wayne follows one rule: recurring businesses, recurring revenue, that's it," because, he says, "If you're going to get in business, you're going to achieve any goal you want. The question is are you chasing smoke or something that's going to stick around?"
A lot of people are like, "I want to be like this." For example, if you're a digital marketer and you're making new products every month, and they expire, you are in the perpetual like, "Oh, the new thing, the new thing." For example, you want to really evaluate if you're following a business model that's going to be in there in the next five or 10 years, because then the systems that you build are going to stick around.
Aderson: I see, and again, technological flow, technological change, communicational change, today is Slack, today is GoToMeeting, tomorrow will be VR technology, but communication will still be there, or what you are calling timeless types of problems that it's a problem now, it will be a problem in 10 years, it will be a problem in 20 years, and we are solving a permanent problem, and technology is just on the side of the river of that, and technology and very specific strategies, correct? Is that the key?
Gonzalo: Exactly. I always go after two types of businesses. I go after recurring revenue businesses, or I go after businesses that make a lot of money on one sale. I used to own a very big mortgage and real estate company, so when we did transaction, it was worth between 7,000 to 15,000 dollars of transaction. So, I could spend a little bit of money to acquire customers because this is the mortgages that are good. You got to be able to say, "Do I have recurring every month, or do I have something that I don't even have to worry about looking at my numbers because the margins are so high?"
A lot of people tried to do everything themselves, and control everything. I, at times, would partner with people who have a strengthened area that I'm weak in, and I do that. So, for example, every business has three components. A good friend of mine that I pay as my advisor, Brad Spencer, and I love what he says. He goes, "There's traffic, conversion, and fulfillment." So, if you're weak in one area, partner with other people who are strong in other areas." So, the business model is the big thing because that's where you kind of sad about. People are like, "Here's a quick SEO thing," and then it disappears the next month. If the guy is selling that process to 10,000 people, it's going to be gone.
Aderson: Now, it does mean that if we have a long-lasting business, we can apply that strategy, but apply it to our own long-lasting business, correct?
Gonzalo: Exactly, absolutely. That's the thing is that's where I find people who are the young bucks, who are like, "Check out this strategy." So, for example, let's say you run an agency for clients to give traffic to them, your job, your main business is you're bringing leads to a brick and mortar business. The strategies are going to change. You want to keep up-to-date, but what you're focusing on is the actual business, and get other people to apply the new strategy all the time.
For example, if a VA takes a week to implement a strategy, you're focusing on the high level and they focus on the technical part, right? So, for example, the general who's going to war says, "I'm going to take that island," he doesn't care if you use the machine gun or grenade. That's their problem. He's focusing on the long-term vision. If the business owner is involved in the technical part, he'll never be the general.
Aderson: It's funny you mention that because I have conversations with good friends of mine, and one of those friends, he was trying to show me that running a business, being a businessman, being a business person, that in its own, is a skill. It has its own attributes that goes way beyond the specifics of that business, of how that business delivers whatever it's producing, you know? So, I find it fascinating and, again, it's very aligned to what you're talking about. Not too many people understand that idea. We, generally, I would include myself there, that we think of ourselves, "Okay, can I deliver whatever that business is doing? Can I deliver that? Yes or no? If yes, then great, I can do it. If no, I cannot do that because I cannot fulfill that promise."
To be honest with you, Gonzalo, this whole interview thing is just a big plot for me to pick the brains of smarter, way, way smarter people than myself, and again, to build myself as well. But, on that note, let me ask you this, you mentioned about two books already. Tell me one of those four things: a person to follow, a book to read, a podcast to listen to, or a video to get inspired by, to watch. What comes to mind when I ask you something like that?
Gonzalo: The book to read is "The Magic of Thinking Big", because I recognize that most people are limited with what they believe in their own mind, and I used to be built with that myself. It took me - I'm 42 now, 41 - very many years to learn that. That's the first thing, The Magic of Thinking Big.
The other thing I would say, the video to watch is this one, because I'm going to show one of my most important secrets is the thing that talks in your head 24/7 that doesn't stop that is like the critic or the sabotager is the biggest obstacle you will ever need to overcome. The way I deal with that is very simple. I have a belief that, no matter what that thing says in my head, that when I create an intention, I will achieve it, in spite of how I feel or what I think.
Remember the whole thing of like you'll be able to at least create your reality, so why not create a belief that's more empowering? So, what if the belief is what I declare is what happens, that's a lot more empowering than a lot of people like the secret and all these other things say, "If you don't feel good, you're going to attract that. If you don't think good thoughts, you're going to attract that." Well, screw that. Why not what I declare is what I attract? Once I did that, guess what happens? It happens. So, this video is the most important video.
The people to follow --
Aderson: You can just pick one of those four. You gave great examples, and I will answer that for you. The people to follow is Gonzalo Paternoster. That's the people that you should follow.
Gonzalo: The thing is you have to look at people's motivation. I like money, I make businesses, but I really feel like my biggest impact on Earth is the Earth can go in a good place or it can go in a bad place. I really believe my mission on Earth is to awaken people up to their own greatness above anything else in my life. So, for me, if people see me as a good example, it's because I used to be another way. I used to be a self-doubter, I used to be non-confident, I used to be this. For me, it's like if somebody says, "Wow, Gonzalo, you're so confident, you're so clear," it's not because I was born that way. It's because I discovered enough that I was already who I was meant to be and I stopped believing this stuff in my head. So, if you want to follow someone who's like, "Hey, the greatest thing that there is around is you, but you got to start believing that," I'm the type of person, and it took me a long time to realize that.
My mission on Earth is to, if we have hundreds and thousands of men and women who are being the guardian for their own life, for other people, our world's going to turn out very well. So, that's kind of like my mission or my purpose.
Aderson: You mentioned something there that resonates, and the reason why I'm giving so many examples, or talking a lot about Sam Carpenter is because I'm reading his book right now, so things come to mind quite a lot, and one of the things that he mentioned which makes a lot of sense is that people try to get to the feeling before they go through the process, to get the mindset first before they do the work, and actually, what he preaches there is that put a process in place that it will lead you to be a better person, or to be that person that thinks positively. So, it's not just about feeling good. It's about acting, and then as a result of your actions, you're going to feel good at the end, and not the opposite. I find that profound and very aligned to what you are talking about.
Let me step back here for a second. On the outsourcing topic, before I let you go, and we have a few things more to talk about, but is there anything in particular that you'd like to mention before we get towards the end here? Anything specific that we may not have mentioned that you find that that's important? Any point?
Gonzalo: I think one of the big things is you're only going to be good at one thing in life. For example, one of the guys who I partner with is the most connected guy in digital marketing. People will always tell him, "Hey, people need to be --" Because, very connected, sociable people are horrible in follow-through. They're very scatter-brained opportunity, but they're amazing at connecting and networking.
What he did is he partnered with me because my strength in follow-through is superior and very good, right? One thing I told him is that, he said, "Gonzalo, what do you want me to do?" I was like, "I want you to connect, make connections and be in your flow. Everything else, I don't want you to do." So, instead of changing who you are, do what is your flow. For example, with me, I'm great at connecting the dots and strategy. I suck at the implementing. So, if I improve my implementing test a little bit, I will still be average. If I improve my deal-making, my connecting the dots, or my systemization process, I'm going to be in the top 100 of the 1% of the world. So, I focus my attention on that. Now, I worry about how do you use split funds.
You have to kind of look at seeing what is the thing that people know about you, and here's the funny thing is, a long time ago when I was younger, I would walk into businesses and say like, "This is stupid, this guy is doing this. He should be doing this, and this, and this." That was my natural flow. I would give you this advice, and people wouldn't pay me for it. One of the skills I have is I'm very clear and I'm very good at getting from step A to step Z. To me, that's second nature, and I used to think the whole world was clear and knew how to go from A to Z. I didn't realize that was a skill. Now, I get paid a lot of money, and own equity in a lot of companies because of that skill. Every person has that skill in something, and that's all you should be doing, and that skill is the thing that feels like it's not work. You give everything else to everyone else.
Aderson: How do you recognize that? Is that somebody else that needs to come to you and say, "Hey, you're good at this thing here. Maybe you should do more of that." How do you recognize that?
Gonzalo: For example, one of the things -- and I don't know how it goes down. Let me tell you how I'll do it. I would go to someone like me and say, "Hey, I would like to pay you an hour of your time to talk to you." That's what I would do if I didn't know. I would outsource it, because you cannot solve the problem that you're blind to, right? So, that's what I would do aggressively. That's how I always think of everything. I don't try to solve my own problems.
I have a method called the "Henry Ford method for the unknown". Henry Ford was a gentleman that he was being made fun of, he was very successful, and people were like, "Why do you own four motor corporations, you're kind of dumb, eighth grade?" and he got frustrated and he says, "I only need to know one thing. I need to be able to push the button, and then after that, I have the top marketer, the top finance person, whatever." So, I was laying down in bed one day, and I said to myself, "What if you don't have a person on the other end of that button, what do you do?" so I created a system how to put that person in place.
I'm going to be probably coming up with a course or a system about that, but I said to myself, "That's a great analogy, but what if I don't have a button, like a person there?" So, I always put people in place to be that missing button. I outsource everything. If I need a good marketer, I outsource it, copywriter, I outsource it, and usually it comes through a conversation, and sometimes I will pay people a lot of money to have the conversation with me, because I don't want to waste 20 years to, by accident, find the solution.
Aderson: As you said, it's one of those things that it's on our blind spot. We just don't see because we're just too deep into that sometimes. I really like that. You mentioned quite a few things, and again, I love what you mentioned there towards the last point, but I'd like to ask you what is the one thing, and I'm a big fan of one things. That's the reason why I like to ask this question towards the end. What is the one thing, Gonzalo, that you'd like people to leave this conversation knowing more about? What is the one thing? Pick one thing of the many that we have discussed here.
Gonzalo: The one thing is that, number 1, it's not by chance you are on this call, or listen to this recording, because I believe, once a person is ready, the things show up in their life to lead them to that path. So, take this as a sign from your universe or God, whatever you want to call it, that you're on the right path. The one thing I would take away is instead of you listening to what's going on in your head, really be present to the clues that the universe or God is sending you of answers that you have been wanting. Most people are so busy, they don't see it.
One thing I do is I sit down every day with a notepad, and I write down all the things I have to do, my thoughts, what are things I'm noticing, because it forces me to slow down. In business, you don't need to speed up. You actually need to slow down. So, if you take away from actually pondering and start noticing the cues of things that are showing up in your space to achieve your goals, they're there already. You just got to see them. If you do that, you're unstoppable.
Aderson: Again, love that. Gonzalo, thank you very much, but before I let you go, I would like you to plug your site once again, plug how people can reach out to you if they have questions, if they want to engage on what to provide. Please, plug your business away.
Gonzalo: Sure. If you go to manofsystems.com/test, you can take the 60-second outsourcing test. Right now, we're updating our email things, but if you go to "Contact Gonzalo" on that page, hit contact, you can message me and decide do you want to systemize your business, do you want to outsource, or do you need some high-level strategies you can do that with? But, the very least is see, and then if you email me directly through the website, I will at least point you the right direction or resource that you need, and hopefully, I can make a connection for you and that will work out. So, that's it.
Aderson: Gonzalo, once again, thank you very much for being available for your time, for your knowledge, your experience, your willingness to share what you have learned over the past few years. Again, I cannot thank you enough. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much and I hope to talk to you soon. Bye.
Gonzalo: Alright, thank you guys. Buh-bye.